Civ 5, My impressions Options

[Tanegar]

Actually, Alpha Centauri is another great one, though it is basically just CIV II reskinned and reworked a bit, but I liked the changes.

Alpha Centauri is awesome. I'd love to see a sequel.

[StealthSigma]

I'm bordered between liking and hating puppet states. The game definitely scales everything down (I just won a cultural victory last night as India while owning 3 cities) and your city count is no exception with high population and high numbers of cities contributing to unhappiness. The nice thing about puppet states is that they give you territory, access to the resources the unlock, and other types of income. The problem is that they build stuff without direction which lead to my irritation. At one point I had a supply of 4 Uranium. I built one Giant Death Robot (1 Uranium Used, 3 Unused). When that GDR finished building I was going to start a second one but I had no Uranium left. I hover over my Uranium resource icon and see 0 Uranium, 4 used, 0 unused. Turns out my puppets decided to go ahead and build nuclear reactors.

My victory as India humored me. After I had won, the only opponent (Siam) went to war with the city-state of Belgrade. At the time I had very good relations with all 4 city-states in the game of which three were military city states. Since I wasn't hostile with Siam at all and they showed no inclination of attacking me, I gifted every gift unit from a city state to Belgrade. When I had nothing worth producing I would produce units just to gift them to Belgrade. I was vastly more advanced, tech-wise, than Siam so Belgrade was running around with infantry and tanks while Siam was using not so advanced units. The result? Belgrade overran and destroyed all but the Siamese capitol (which they took over). I also tried gifting an atomic bomb to Belgrade but I couldn't figure out how to so I expect you cannot gift atomic weapons to city-states.

[Dumori]

I'm bordered between liking and hating puppet states. The game definitely scales everything down (I just won a cultural victory last night as India while owning 3 cities) and your city count is no exception with high population and high numbers of cities contributing to unhappiness. The nice thing about puppet states is that they give you territory, access to the resources the unlock, and other types of income. The problem is that they build stuff without direction which lead to my irritation. At one point I had a supply of 4 Uranium. I built one Giant Death Robot (1 Uranium Used, 3 Unused). When that GDR finished building I was going to start a second one but I had no Uranium left. I hover over my Uranium resource icon and see 0 Uranium, 4 used, 0 unused. Turns out my puppets decided to go ahead and build nuclear reactors.

My victory as India humored me. After I had won, the only opponent (Siam) went to war with the city-state of Belgrade. At the time I had very good relations with all 4 city-states in the game of which three were military city states. Since I wasn't hostile with Siam at all and they showed no inclination of attacking me, I gifted every gift unit from a city state to Belgrade. When I had nothing worth producing I would produce units just to gift them to Belgrade. I was vastly more advanced, tech-wise, than Siam so Belgrade was running around with infantry and tanks while Siam was using not so advanced units. The result? Belgrade overran and destroyed all but the Siamese capitol (which they took over). I also tried gifting an atomic bomb to Belgrade but I couldn't figure out how to so I expect you cannot gift atomic weapons to city-states.

You should have gifted the real good stuf in small numbers to Siam if you could and give Belgrade aton of mediocre stuff and watch the carnage.

[StealthSigma]

You should have gifted the real good stuf in small numbers to Siam if you could and give Belgrade aton of mediocre stuff and watch the carnage.

Why? City-states don't start wars only other Civilizations start wars. It was in my best interest to have Belgrade wipe out Siam.

[Doc Chase]

Why? City-states don't start wars only other Civilizations start wars. It was in my best interest to have Belgrade wipe out Siam.

What tech level is Uncle Tom's Cabin? It worked in the movie!

[Dumori]

What tech level is Uncle Tom's Cabin? It worked in the movie!

best interest schimtrest. By the sounds of it you have the ability to wipe the victor any way. Play for fun not victory.

[Kagetenshi]

But, if anyone dropped a nuke on anyone now... well, you can bet there would be absurd political (and/or military (Nukes)) backlash.

Right. Which is ironic, because a well-built tactical nuke really is just a big, light bomb.

Your proposed mechanic for second-strike backlash is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. The big risk is that it could be unbalancing, but I guess that depends on how the rest of the game is structured (the risk of not getting the first strike will prevent someone from stockpiling huge numbers of nukes before firing, so then the question is "how massive is the effect of one to three nukes").

~J

[Backgammon]

I would promptly nuke anyone that got upset with me nuking another civ. No one would complain after that. Yeeesss....

[nezumi]

Your proposed mechanic for second-strike backlash is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. The big risk is that it could be unbalancing, but I guess that depends on how the rest of the game is structured (the risk of not getting the first strike will prevent someone from stockpiling huge numbers of nukes before firing, so then the question is "how massive is the effect of one to three nukes").

That's what the game needs - MAD. Some technology that lets you set a trigger-response condition. "If nuclear launch detected, retaliate with X weapons at Y targets". THAT would be awesome.

[StealthSigma]

Side note. Japan is ludicrously powerful in small maps in the early game.

Push to iron, make sure I got some then push to be able to make Samurai. They're very potent and you have the Japanese advantage of fighting at full strength when wounded. It makes it really easy for 2-3 Samurai to push around an opponent.

[Fix-it]

Side note. Japan is ludicrously powerful in small maps in the early game.

Push to iron, make sure I got some then push to be able to make Samurai. They're very potent and you have the Japanese advantage of fighting at full strength when wounded. It makes it really easy for 2-3 Samurai to push around an opponent.

I think Bushido makes Japan a bit OP in most eras.

[Voran]

I think Bushido makes Japan a bit OP in most eras.

Which...oddly seems to make some sense. For such a relatively small nation, Japan did surprisingly well on the world stage, world war 2 etc. On another note, I'm avoiding getting this game for at least another couple weeks, as I have some term paper stuff for grad school, and I KNOW this game would manage to suck hours of focus out of me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

It's really not that small—Japan larger than, say, Germany or the UK. More impressive, I think, is the comebacks Japan managed to stage first against the stagnation of two hundred and fifty years of heavily controlled trade (and during the late renaissance/early industrial period, no less) and then against the devastation of the war.

~J

[hobgoblin]

well the first boom came out of a militarization of the nation (basically a modern variant of what had run the place for the last 100+ years more or less) in much the same way that the nazis bootstrapped the post-ww1 german economy. The second was probably helped along by the korean war, as there was a need for a staging ground for bombers and logistics.

[StealthSigma]

It's really not that small—Japan larger than, say, Germany or the UK. More impressive, I think, is the comebacks Japan managed to stage first against the stagnation of two hundred and fifty years of heavily controlled trade (and during the late renaissance/early industrial period, no less) and then against the devastation of the war.

~J

Japan's success is great in light of their supply of natural resources for war efforts.

I completed a Diplomatic victory last night. I've done Domination [Japan], Diplomatic [Russia], and Cultural [India] so far. I was getting worried about whether or not I would be able to get the victory because I blew my money on allying city-states for votes a bit earlier than I should have and was a few turns away from losing them as allies.

Between two turns I had 6 civilization ask me to declare war on Germany [England, Aztec, India, Persia, Japan, and France]. I don't think most of the world liked Germany much. I was rated #4 in military which is a tad silly considering my "army" consisted of 2 Destroyers out exploring the world, and three infantry (one garrisoning each of my 3 cities). I'm sure Germany wasn't even close to a threat to my cities, they had defensive values of well over 60 each when Germany's cities were running about 20. I just didn't want all my tile improvements to get blown up nor did I want to build an army to push back Germany.

I don't think I could have pulled off a science victory in that game because of how quickly I got squished out of expanding by Aztec and Germany.

[Kagetenshi]

Japan's success is great in light of their supply of natural resources for war efforts.

That's certainly true.

I made the correction mostly because there seems to be a common notion that Japan is much smaller than it is—one I held myself until I happened to discover that there are more native Japanese speakers than native German speakers.

~J

[StealthSigma]

That's certainly true.

I made the correction mostly because there seems to be a common notion that Japan is much smaller than it is—one I held myself until I happened to discover that there are more native Japanese speakers than native German speakers.

~J

People is not a natural resource that is in short supply in Japan.

[Dumori]

That's certainly true.

I made the correction mostly because there seems to be a common notion that Japan is much smaller than it is—one I held myself until I happened to discover that there are more native Japanese speakers than native German speakers.

~J

Its probably due to both its island nature and distortion on maps due to longitude/latitude and likely the fact that tall+thin looks smaller than short+wide

[Hocus Pocus]

thought about buying this game while at best buy today, sounds like its good.

[Fix-it]

thought about buying this game while at best buy today, sounds like its good.

it still has some bugs, and the hardcore civers are divided on the "social policies" system.

the new military unit system and besieging cities is nice. stacking 10+ units was dumb.

[Tanegar]

it still has some bugs, and the hardcore civers are divided on the "social policies" system.

Tell me more about social policies, please.

[Backgammon]

You basically pick 1bonus at a time to apply to your civ. There are five politics, which grant a bonus just for unlocking them, then each has a tree of bonuses to unlock. Like there is a military branch that gives combat bonuses, or a growth policy that gives stuff like +1 production per city, etc. You unlock each of these by using culture points. After x amount of culture you get to unlock 1 thing. It's cool, allows you to Taylor your civ to you play style and goals

[Fix-it]

Tell me more about social policies, please.

full overview halfway down the page.

I haven't really gotten very far towards a social victory, because I tend to expand with a sprawling empire, which slows cultural growth.

edit2: on-topic utube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6wlTDPiPU

[Tanegar]

Downloaded the demo. I like the policy-tree mechanic more than I liked the static choices of Civ4. I'll probably wait for the price to drop a bit, but I'll definitely pick up Civ5 at some point.

[Karoline]

Sounds similar to picking your form of government in Civ II, though it kind of had fairly distinct 'this government style is the best' options.